Delver Magic I: Sanctum's Breach by Jeff Inlo (read novels website .TXT) 📕

Stephen continued with a mix of compassion and resolve filling his speech. “I realize you are not a follower of Godson, Lauren. You don’t understand the power that guided me to you. If you did, you’d lose your fears. But while you don’t understand my faith, I know you understand the power within you, a power which you can control. The barrier you must create will be large, I realize that, but you can do this.”

Her head jolted up. Her eyes and nose were red, her face blotched with the strain of emotion. “I don’t want to do it!” she nearly screamed.

“Bah!” Tun released.

“Alright, that’s enough.” Ryson turned aside the cold stare from the dwarf and placed his attention upon the sorceress. He sheathed his sword so the brilliant radiance would not be centered upon her. The level of light dropped significantly as only the strategically placed light gems offered any illumination. Many of the walls which surrounded them appeared to shift in size and shape. New paths emerged. Different traps became revealed, some real, some illusion; the change all due to the shift in light.

Ryson ignored the alterations. He spoke softly to Lauren, in words that revealed his understanding. “Ignore him, and for a moment, ignore everything else. Stop worrying about what’s happening to you. It’s not helping you. You can wish with all your might that it would stop, but I don’t think it’s going to help. You’re probably telling yourself over and over again that you didn’t ask for this, didn’t want it. All you want is to go back to the way things were, when you were no different than everybody else you knew.”

A gleam of hope rose in Lauren’s eyes. “You know what I’m trying to say. You see what I’m going through.”

“Not completely,” Ryson responded truthfully. “But I know the look you’ve had since I met you. Most delvers share that look. When we learn of our abilities, it fills us with as much fear as it does excitement. It is not a pleasant thought to be so different from those around you. Some try to hide their abilities, even forget them. For them, it’s a better alternative than feeling isolated and alone. But that’s their choice. Being a delver gives me some understanding, but it doesn’t give me all the answers to your problem. I know very little about this magic, but I think I see in you the same confusion I once saw in myself.”

Lauren waited impatiently for him to reveal the secret of dealing with this dilemma. She wanted to hear the words that would lessen the tension in her stomach and remove the doubts and fears from her mind.

Ryson could only offer words which bluntly explained the truth.

“You may not want to hear this, but I’m going to tell you what I think you should do. I think you should help us proceed. Basically, it’s because your problem won’t matter to anyone, not even you, if we let the sphere kill us all.”

He bent his head slightly to get a clear view of her face. “You’re going to decide in the end whether you want to use these powers or not. You’re going to decide now, and you’re going to have to decide again after this is all over. You may want to return to life the way it was for you and never cast a spell again. But you know what; you can only do that if you help us now. The sphere’s going to kill us, kill us all. It’s going to kill everyone in Connel. There’ll be no normal life for you to return to. That’s why I’m telling you what I think you should do. It’ll always be your choice, though, no matter what you do now. If in the future you wish to hide your power, a decision to help here won’t change that. Those that are here aren’t going to be revealing your secret to anyone. But a decision not to help, well, that’ll make your problem meaningless because we’ll all be dead, including you.”

He straightened up, pulled his sword again from its sheath. The light returned to its previous state, as did the walls surrounding them. “If you want to place the responsibility of your choice upon me, go right ahead. But I don’t believe any of us have a choice any longer.”

Lauren stiffened at these last words. She wiped the remaining tears from her eyes as if their presence insulted her. She threw her hands down to her sides, and again, they formed tight fists. She glowered at the darkness in the distance as she swallowed the last hint of her despair.

“Fine,” she remarked simply but coldly, a single word which signaled a transformation. While not taking a step, she leaned away from them all. Flinging her hands open, as if releasing the fears which previously bound her, she swept loose hairs from her face. She would not look at the delver, she turned to Stephen instead. “We can all go. Tell me when you want me to cast the damn spell.”

“Ummh,” he stammered at first. He looked about as everyone now watched him. “I guess we should go now.”

“Very well.” Her reply was just as cold, but slightly more biting. The blotches on her face were quickly disappearing, her pallor returned quickly to a healthy pink. She closed her eyes for but an instant. When they reopened, they burned with dark purple flames. She said nothing.

She focused first on the floor at her feet. Her eyes bulged ever so slightly, and the violet shadows of her pupils grew and threatened to reach out with unbounded fury. She turned and arched her neck, slowly but surely scanning the entire floor under each member. She then passed her view beyond the edges of where they stood. The air hardened with each passing glance. The shell of the barrier became visible. It was transparent, like a growing shield of glass. She turned about and the path of her sight encircled them. The shell grew with each wave of her focus and soon it surrounded them. Finally, she pressed her vision upon the area over their heads. She scanned the black open space from side to side and front to back. With these last glances the barrier was complete.

With a final pass, her eyes returned to normal and she set them back upon the interpreter. “The field is set. We are completely surrounded and shall not be harmed by any of the dangers you mentioned.”

Stephen rubbed his hands together nervously. With nothing to say to Lauren, and uncomfortable with her gaze, he turned instead to Tun. “If you would, you may open the door now.”

From near the back, Holli called out one last warning. “Won’t his arm be singed if he passes it through the barrier?”

“The barrier will move with him as it will move with us all,” Lauren stated with calculated confidence. “Any flame will no more hurt the dwarf than it would the cliff behemoth behind me.”

Tun did not wait for further explanation. His hand speared downward to the ground, and indeed, the violet hardened shell stretched with his movements, revealing its own flexibility. His fingers disappeared to those that watched as he groped for the handle which remained hidden by the illusion of a gem. As he probed, the barrier expanded to encase areas where his fingers pressed upon. A grunt of satisfaction revealed he found that for which he searched. With a savage pull upon an iron ring, he hoisted a stone cover on its hinge and opened wide the passage to the next level.

Instinctively, he had shielded his eyes from the bright flare which he expected, but no such flame appeared. The opening was as quiet as church rafters. There was no ignition of the air which even now flowed freely into the next level, no sign of explosion or even the smallest spark appeared. The first barrier as explained by the interpreter had failed.

Stephen looked into the newly created hole with befuddlement. “I don’t understand.”

Tun returned the statement with a doubting, accusing stare, but said nothing.

Stephen felt the need to explain. “I assure you, the opening of this hole should have released a wave of flame.”

“It did not,” Tun stated the obvious.

“Has the passage been opened before?” Holli asked.

Tun took but a moment to inspect the rock cover which was in his hand. “No. The break in the seal is fresh. This stone has not been moved in ages.”

“I don’t understand.” Stephen agonized over the mystery. The culmination of events was quickly taking their toll on his youthful enthusiasm. Being inside Sanctum, following Tun through the first maze, dealing with Lauren, and now the deficiency in his own explanations; all of this drained from him his normal exuberance. He was growing tired. It was late and he had not slept. The pain of riding horseback all day now sunk in his legs. He heaved a heavy breath in exhaustion. He could not decide what to do next, and the decision to move onward had to be made for him.

“Let us not question it further,” Lief advised. “If the seal has not been previously broken, there is no true danger to us. It may simply be that over time, the substances placed in this tier offset each other. Let us just be thankful and move on.”

“I think that’s wise,” Ryson echoed the sentiment.

Stephen shrugged, but accepted the directive.

Without any dissent, the group moved down a second set of steps. The protective shield moved with them just as the light filled their path. Jon set another light gem at the opening and Ryson’s sword doubled and redoubled its radiance. Again, there were four segments to the stairway, each comprised of ten steps, and square platforms of heavy granite bricks divided the sections.

Stephen took the lead, but Tun decided to stay near the front rather than drop back with his brother. The lack of fire had him questioning the words of the interpreter. It fueled his misgivings, justified his doubts, and the dwarf prince wondered what else might contradict Stephen’s revelation of the human secret. He moved behind the interpreter, filled with suspicion and eager to challenge any further discrepancies.

Stephen, himself, descended with curious eyes, grasping for an explanation to the lack of flame which should have greeted them. He peered into the tier with every opportunity, affording more attention to the surrounding area than the steps which bore him. There was no void to block his vision. The open space of the tier bathed in the light from Jon’s gem and Ryson’s sword and it held another alteration from Stephen’s description.

There was at first glance, that which was expected. The ceiling overhead remained safe and solid. It was well supported by the very walls of the mountain as well as by thick stone columns. The pillars were wider than the cliff behemoth and stood the test of time far better than the brick walls constructed by the humans.

Here waited more of the unexpected for the interpreter. There were no sections in this room, no division of space. Most of the walls which divided the room into chambers were reduced to rubble, or even clay dust. Only two or three remained partially standing, and they were crumbling and unsteady. With the decay of the brick, the tier now took on the shape of a wide open expanse rather than a space divided by separate chambers.

There could, however, be no denying the previous existence of the brick walls. If not, Tun would have been more than willing to challenge the interpreter’s truthfulness, but even the stubborn dwarf could not